Google: Top Three Things A Developer Can Do For Search Rankings Doesn't Include Links

Google's Martin Splitt posted the first SEO Mythbusting series and in there, a developer asked him what can to help his sites and apps do better in search. What are the "top three things I should consider" he asked. Martin answered in the form of being a developer and because of that, did not include links.

Watch it, it starts at the 2:50 mark, here is the embed where it starts:

Now, meta descriptions are NOT a ranking factor at all. They just help determine what shows in the snippet in the search results. But Google does not use that for how to rank a web page in search. Don't believe me even based on me covering that numerous times here in the past? Here is Martin Splitt from Google confirming it is not a ranking factor:

Not a ranking factor, but what good is ranking high when nobody clicks on your page b/c the other results look more helpful? (:

Second, he left out links - we all know links are for sure a top 3 ranking factor in Google. So I asked Martin why he left out links and he said basically SEOs focus too much on links and that is a bad thing.

So there you have it, these top three; content, meta data and performance are not the top SEO factors by Google but the top three things a developer can focus on when it comes to search. But yea, links are important and good quality content and fast pages helps with people linking to you.